British Columbia

Van der Mark was unable to say how many children were on the bus. However, he said that all staff and students had been accounted for and were being checked out by first responders on the scene. He could not confirm whether there were injuries.

He said the school district is working with police to ensure parents and guardians of the students on the bus are informed. Parents are being told to meet their kids at the South Cariboo Rec Centre in 100 Mile House, van der Mark said

The British Columbia government has filed a class-action lawsuit against manufacturers of so-called "forever chemicals" it says are involved in the widespread contamination of drinking water systems.

Old-growth forests that were environmental and Indigenous rights battlegrounds over clearcut logging in the 1980s and 1990s during British Columbia’s “war in the woods” are set to receive permanent protections in a land and forest management agreement.

The B.C. government says an agreement Tuesday with two Vancouver Island First Nations will protect about 760 square kilometres of Crown land in Clayoquot Sound by establishing 10 new conservancies in areas that include old-growth forests and unique ecosystems.

The partnership involves reconfiguring the tree farm licence in the Clayoquot Sound area to protect the old-growth zones while supporting other forest industry tenures held by area First Nations, said Forests Minister Bruce Ralston in a statement.

Statements from the Clayoquot Sound’s Ahoushat and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations say the conservancies will preserve old-growth forests on Meares Island and the Kennedy Lake area, sites of protests that led to hundreds of arrests.

“We have successfully reached a first phase implementation of the land-use vision,” Tyson Atleo, Ahousaht First Nation hereditary representative, said in an interview. “We will see (Tree Farm Licence 54) on Meares Island actively become real legislated protected areas for the first time in history.”

Plans for clearcut logging on Meares Island, about one kilometre northeast of Tofino and the site of some of the world’s largest western red cedars, touched off environmental and Indigenous protests in the 1980s. They eventually resulted in a court injunction that halted logging, saying Indigenous land claim issues should be resolved.

About a decade later, more than 800 people were arrested in the Clayoquot Sound area of Kennedy Lake near Ucluelet as protesters descended to demonstrate against more logging activities.

The forest company eventually left the area after losing an estimated $200 million in contracts related to timber sales.

https://animaljustice.ca/blog/vegan-firefighter-loses-case

His common sense vision for public safety involves a big increase in addiction treatment programs, most of them private and some of them involuntary, meaning during incarceration. He wants indefinite apprehension of permanently brain-damaged habitual offenders now wandering the streets, on mental health grounds. That could involve invoking the notwithstanding clause in the charter of rights to bypass constitutional concerns if need be, he said.

A Kelowna mom is speaking out and hoping to engage parents after she found out her child had been a target of racism and bullying at a local middle school.

Ashley, whose last name has been left out to protect the privacy of her child, said the issue first came to light when her kid acted out at home by ripping up her Mother's Day card in a burst of anger.

Questioning the outburst, Ashley who has a child of colour, soon learned that they had been called racial slurs such as 'monkey' by classmates.

She added that her child said they've heard other students also being called racial slurs.

The concerned mom took the issue to the school's principal to address the situation where she was offered an apology and told the school has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to bullying and racism.

There’s so much to love about summer in British Columbia: greenery, beaches, fresh produce. And most notably, peaches, the best fruit there is.

Admittedly, the stone fruit is widely available all through the year nowadays, thanks to imports from places as far-flung as Chile, Argentina, California and New Zealand. But it’s only irresistible from mid-July to early September, when B.C.’s 600-odd growers gift us with 4.6 million kilograms of velvety, sun-softened, fragrant and fully superior peaches.

Give me a peach in October, and I turn into J. Alfred Prufrock, who famously asked, “Do I dare to eat a peach?”

Give me a peach in July, when I know it’s a fresh Okanagan Redhaven, Glohaven or Cresthaven, picked in Penticton and bursting with flavour? I’ll eat the whole thing before asking myself if I’m hungry.

As I’ve written previously, B.C. fruit is not only downright delicious; it’s practically overabundant most summers.

Blink, and a bucket of blueberries seems to materialize in your house; the same goes for peaches, piled high in their biodegradable, pulp berry baskets and bought for a pittance wherever fresh produce is sold.

Not this summer, though.

Cross-posted to https://sh.itjust.works/post/21102211

• source (archive)

• "Castlegar opens Canada's tallest castle play structure". Chelsea Novak. Castlegar News. 2024-06-14T13:00. https://www.castlegarnews.com/community/castlegar-opens-canadas-tallest-castle-play-structure-7387997.

Here is a before on Google Street View, and here is an after (while under construction).

Vancouver’s oldest board game shop is closing on July 31.

Kitsilano’s Drexoll Games shared the news with its community via Facebook at the end of May, stating: “The sole reason for our closure is that although we survived the pandemic, and renewed our five-year lease in 2021 with enthusiasm, the building was subsequently sold, and the new owners of our building at 2880 West 4th served us an eviction notice under the Demolition Clause in our lease. It has not been a very fun plot twist. We have sought other options over the last 10 months, but are unable to find a similar space and location at rates that would allow us to continue our business.”

Moore said while campaigning for B.C. United last fall, it became apparent through a "number of the individuals in our constituency and key people that the B.C. United flag wasn't going to carry the day for us."

On X, B.C. United wrote Moore "had fundamental differences" with the party "in terms of not competing against the B.C. Conservatives and defending B.C. United from criticisms levied by political opponents. "

The Pride flag won’t fly at Mission city hall again this year.

A motion from Coun. Ken Herar on Monday (June 17) to amend the city’s flag policy didn’t have a seconder, meaning there was no discussion or vote on the matter. Coun. Jag Gill was absent from the meeting.

The amendment would allow the Pride flag to fly at city hall during the annual Fraser Valley Pride Celebration.

The matter was raised by Herar before, but this time he was optimistic. Herar says he initially wasn't going to bring the motion back but checked with the Fraser Valley Youth Society (FVYS), which organizes the annual Pride event. The society supported bringing the motion forward.

“I was really hopeful that there would at least be a discussion on this matter,” Herar said.

Mission Mayor Paul Horn says he didn’t second the motion because it was already discussed exhaustively in the past.

“There really isn't anything new to discuss,” Horn said.

Horn says the city has been supporting Pride in other ways, including hosting the Fraser Valley Pride Festival, creating space for the Fraser Valley Youth Society, and flying the flag where more people go.

“I think that the whole idea of supporting Pride has been to increase diversity in our community – to expect people to leave space for others,” Horn said.

According to Horn, raising the flag on government flagpoles tends to create polarization, not increase understanding.

Earlier this month, the City of Mission changed its logo on social media for Pride month to reflect the Progress Pride Flag. The city also had a Pride-themed social media logo last June. Horn says it wasn’t a council decision.

“That's a different thing than the flag policy … the logo is not our official coat of arms or official flag,” Horn said.

Nineteen people this year have been forced to transfer out of Providence Health Care facilities to access medical assistance in dying (MAID), a scenario advocates say proves the attempted fix by the province isn't good enough.

Nine of those patients were transferred out of Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital, four from Mount Saint Joseph Hospital, four from May's Place Hospice and two from St. John Hospice.

Those figures were provided by Providence Health to CBC News Tuesday.

The Catholic health-care provider that oversees St. Paul's Hospital is being sued by the family of a Vancouver woman over its policy banning MAID in its facilities. If a patient requests MAID, they must be transferred to a different health facility, typically run by Vancouver Coastal Health.

Influencers with the extremist racist group Diagolon spend hours making livestreams, trying to spread their message of hatred against immigrants and minorities through the online world on sites like Rumble and X.

Some prominent members have become fixated on hatred of South Asian people, celebrating violent videos showing people in India being hit by trains and complaining about the number of South Asian members of Parliament.

Now they’re planning a real-life foray, including stops in Vancouver and Kamloops, part of a venture they’ve named the “road rage terror tour” according to an ad on X.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says it will be filing a complaint with the Vancouver Police Department over its officers' treatment and arrest of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last month.

Around 100 of those demonstrators gathered at a section of railway lines in East Vancouver on May 31 to lay 303 sets of children's clothing on the tracks. The group says it was holding vigil for the thousands of Palestinian children who have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its retaliation to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.

The Vancouver Police Department says it moved in to clear the group that afternoon because they had been obstructing the Canadian National Railway lines for several hours. Video posted to social media from scene shows how chaos soon broke out between the two groups, with officers taking numerous people to the ground to handcuff them.

In the end, police arrested 14 people for mischief and obstruction.

VPD Media Relations Officer Tania Visintin told Black Press Media they gave the demonstrators ample time to leave and that "no force would have been required had the protesters just complied." She said the demonstrators were "pushing and shoving" and that their "hostile dynamics " dictated the level of force used by police.

The demonstrators, on the other hand, say the officers were unnecessarily violent and that community members were punched, kicked, pepper-sprayed, choked and strangled. The group says dozens of them left with injuries, including a pregnant woman.

“While all we did was stand, officers did not use any de-escalation," community member Sukhi Gill recalled at a press conference outside the VPD headquarters on Tuesday (June 18).

https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024MOTI0028-000940